BY JOHN SARGE
DAYTON, Ohio - "We're trying to create more jobs so the
younger generation has a future in this plant," said Mathew
Mayer. He has worked for General Motors for 31 years. He gave
an interview as he picketed the Needmore Road plant here March
16. "The company thought we would go back after a week. Now
that we know we can shut down GM, we won't be back until we win
our demands."

The strike here by 2,700 workers began March 5 at two GM
brake parts plants and has ground the auto giant's production
to a halt. As the walkout began to cause shortages of brake
components in assembly plants, more than 166,000 have been
idled and GM has shut down 26 of its 29 production factories in
North America. Plants have shut down from Canada to Mexico,
with half the nearly 60,000 parts-plant workers affected by the
strike being in Mexico. The company is trying to deny
unemployment benefits to laid-off workers in the U.S. - a de
facto lock-out.

GM and other U.S. auto manufacturers use the "just in time"
inventory system, which means assembly plants get parts as
needed. This strike shows the power of parts workers under this
system to affect production.

This is the longest strike against a major U.S. auto maker
in 26 years, since a two-month strike against GM in 1970.

Thousands of other workers at non-GM owned parts plants
have also been affected. At American Axle in Detroit some
workers estimated at least 15 percent of the workers at the
operation have already been laid off due to the strike.
American Axle, which was sold off by GM three years ago,
produces axles and other parts for many auto companies.

Some 3,000 members of Local 696 of the United Auto Workers
Union (UAW) walked out March 5 over plans by GM to shift work
out of the Dayton plants to lower cost suppliers, a practice
called outsourcing, thereby threatening jobs.

Health and safety issues and staffing levels that lead to
overtime also play a role. A plant manager has admitted in
press interviews that workers in the Dayton factories average a
shift and a half of overtime a week. Strikers report that it is
closer to two shifts of overtime a week.

Big business is watching this strike carefully. The
Investor's Business Daily reported that U.S. steelmakers were
"concerned a prolonged stoppage could hurt their shipments and
profits." Wall Street analysts estimate that GM alone is
loosing $250 to $300 million a week because of the strike.

Company officials have made it clear they are prepared for
a fight. GM made a $6.9 billion profit last year and has a
higher than usual inventory of most cars and trucks, giving the
auto giant flexibility to weather the walkout for a while.

The company has made it plain it intends to make as many
workers as possible suffer to win this strike. GM announced it
will attempt to block union workers laid off because of the
strike from drawing unemployment insurance. The state of Texas
is the only one so far that has ruled against GM workers'
claims.

GM vice chairman Harry Pearce laid out GM's approach
telling the press the company must choose parts suppliers based
on lower cost, not keep GM parts plants operating. "If we must
think in terms of creating UAW jobs, independent of our ability
to compete in cost and quality... well, it's hard to imagine
how we could live with this," Pearce said.

Wall Street investors are confident so far in this stand by
the company. GM stock prices have been slowly but steadily
rising during the last two weeks.

Workers on the picket lines are also confident in the face
of GM's refusal to budge. UAW members in these plants have
experienced GM's drive for profits for years. The only new
workers brought into the Dayton plants over the last 10 years
are workers laid off from other GM operations and transferred
there under terms of the UAW national contract. This is the
third walkout by the local over similar issues since the mid-
1980s.

The plants in Dayton are quiet, with small picket lines and
mostly empty parking lots. At the Needmore Rd. plant eight
strikers walk picket duty in four-hour shifts on two gates in
front of a deserted parking lot.

At the Wisconsin Rd. plant, four strikers staff picket
lines at each of a half dozen entrances. There is a little more
activity here because the local union sent 300 workers back
into the plant on the second day of the walkout to produce
brakes for other auto makers. The pickets have to check the
special union-issued passes of UAW members entering.

At times there are more non-strikers at some picket sites.
On March 16, Dan Sponaugle and Eddie Neace had driven up from
Cincinnati to offer their solidarity. Sponaugle said they were
"showing our union support. Even though we're laid off we're
supporting the strike." Sponaugle and Neace, both in their late
20s, said they were officers of the UAW local that had recently
won its first contract at a GM parts supplier that announced
lay offs due to the strike earlier in the week.

Among those who showed up and tried to win adherents among
GM workers in Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, was ultrarightist
politician Patrick Buchanan who was campaigning in the Midwest
in mid-March for the Republican nomination for U.S. president.
Buchanan tried to use the strike to advance his reactionary
"America First" themes by praising it as a fight against
sending "American" jobs abroad. He did the same during the
Machinists strike against Boeing in January, while he has
attacked other strikes that can not serve his nationalist
demagogy, such as an earlier walkout at the New York Daily
News.

Buchanan was frequently photographed in Michigan and
elsewhere sporting UAW hats and T-shirts with a few UAW members
surrounding him. But television reports also quoted UAW workers
saying they opposed the ultrarightist's campaign.

John Sarge is a member of UAW Local 900 and works for Ford
in the Detroit area. Val Libby from Cincinnati and Dave
Rowlands from Cleveland contributed to this article.